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Name: Greek Laughter

Author: Stephen Halliwell
Year: 2008
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Culture: Greece

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The 1st book to offer an integrated reading of ancient Greek attitudes to laughter. Taking material from various genres & contexts, the book analyses both the theory & the practice of laughter as a revealing expression of Greek values & mentalities. Greek society developed distinctive institutions for the celebration of laughter as a capacity which could bridge the gap between humans & gods; but it also feared laughter for its power to expose individuals & groups to shame & even violence. Caught between ideas of pleasure & pain, friendship & enmity, laughter became a theme of recurrent interest in various contexts. Employing a sophisticated model of cultural history, Stephen Halliwell traces elaborations of the theme in a series of important texts: ranging far beyond modern accounts of 'humor', he shows how perceptions of laughter helped to shape Greek conceptions of the body, the mind & the meaning of life.